


Bouquets

by fireflysglow_archivist



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Implied Kaylee Frye/Simon Tam, Implied Malcolm Reynolds/Inara Serra - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-18
Updated: 2004-08-18
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14467650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflysglow_archivist/pseuds/fireflysglow_archivist
Summary: Everyone deals with death a little differently.





	Bouquets

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Spoilers for Heart of Gold. Takes place a year or so after Objects in Space.

  
Author's notes: Spoilers for Heart of Gold. Takes place a year or so after Objects in Space.  


* * *

Bouquets

## Bouquets

Mal listens to Zoe, nodding intermittently. Well, he listens to Zoe and the occasional interruption from Wash, but he doesn't interrupt himself even though he has questions. Like, how can so much happen in the two days he was planetside? 

Zoe finishes, and Wash does too, looking down at her and resting a hand on her shoulder. Mal can't think of anything to do or say, he can barely remember to breathe for a moment or two. He does that, inhales, looks at Zoe, exhales, Wash. Inhales, down at his hands. 

"I wish I had have been there, Zoe." She smiles but it's tight lipped, and Wash nods, but even that is all wrong somehow. "What did you name her?" 

"Rose," Zoe manages, and her voice catches. 

"Sheppard baptised her as Rose Serenity Warren," Wash finishes when Zoe can't, because he wants the captain to know how real she was, just for an hour. How she was there, right there in his arms, in his wife's arms. How everyone saw her and loved her and how hard Simon tried. It's all right there in her name, he thinks. 

"And she got a proper funeral?" Zoe nods, turning her face away because, gorammit, hasn't she cried enough? Won't it be over? She looks over at Wash, who's not looking at anyone, and remembers how happy he was when she told him, how that happiness turned to utter fright and panic. She had seen it in his eyes when she woke him up to see her blood-slicked thighs. But then he'd masked the panic, been strong and called for Simon and squeezed her hand and calmly fielded the questions. He'd cried too though, after she was born. Little Rose, in his arms. 

Zoe knew she would always remember that. The pink little blanket from Kaylee pressed up against Wash's Hawaiian shirt like a sunset gradient. His face, all happy, sad, proud, hopeful, destroyed. 

Mostly she was glad Mal had been away. This wasn't a war story. It wasn't a story at all, it was her and Wash and it had almost been Rose too. 

Mal gets up, sighing a bit or maybe just remembering that exhaling part. 

"I can't do anything now, can I?" 

"Just thank you, Mal," is all Zoe says, and he turns and walks away. Not captain, not sir. Mal. This was human. He walks to his bunk, imagining what the frail weight of Rose Serenity Warren would have felt like in his arms. 

* * *

"It's so awful," Kaylee says for about the sixteenth time tonight. Inara smiles sadly at her, working her brush through River's hair. 

"It is, Kaylee. But at least they had a little time with her." 

"I dunno," Kaylee shrugs, "Sometimes I think I'd rather, y'know, not have something just so's I don't know what it's like to lose it." 

"That might be so for some things," She stops as River jerks away and sits beside Kaylee on the bed. "But I think it was important for Zoe - Wash too - to have Rose for a while." 

"She'll always have her. Could never forget that," River says softly. Kaylee looks over at her, and smiles. 

"No one ever will. She was beautiful, weren't she? D'you ever think you'll have kids Inara?" 

"I haven't really thought about it." She puts the brush down, pausing to think of what it would be like to brush a child's hair, her child's hair. It would be sandy brown. "No, I probably won't." 

"I always wanted to," Kaylee says almost wistfully, her smile spreading wide. "Back home, I always thought I'd get married right away and have all these little fat babies runnin' around." Hers were dark haired but blue eyed, she thought, with big round faces and hands that could do anything, fix an engine, fix a heart. 

"Mine are ghosts," River whispers, wiping the smiles from Inara and Kaylee. "They'll keep her company." 

* * *

Shepherd Book had been reading his Bible over the past day and a half, but the answers were hard to come by. He'd seen the baby girl breathe her first breath and her last. He'd watched Zoe's stomach become full and round with the weight of her, seen the maternal glow from the first day. If there was such a thing as a paternal glow, Wash certainly had that. 

But the Bible refuses to tell him why it had happened to them, of all people. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, sure, that was plain as day. The Lord wasn't saying why though. 

He wonders maybe if River can still fix his book. 

* * *

The last place Simon wants to be was stuck with Jayne in the kitchen. But Jayne doesn't seem be moving anytime soon, and at this point in the dreadful two days, even his company is better than being alone. So he sits down and starts talking, even if it is to Jayne. 

"I wish I could have done more." 

"It happens. We ain't some fancy mobile hospital or nothin'. It's a wonder you saved some of us from death more'an a few times." 

"But - it was just so amazing, to see them with that tiny little thing - " 

"Baby, doc. It was a baby, and it was named Rose." 

Simon shakes his head, his eyes darting away from Jayne's. 

"Look, I ain't got much of a...you know, outlook - " 

"Philosophy?" 

"Yeah, whatever. I ain't got much of one of those either, on life. But sometimes, some stuff happens for a reason. Nothin' like your crazy sister cuttin' me up, that's just plain stupid. But say in a year, we all connect the dots and figure out that that baby died for a reason, and then all this mournin' and mopin' about's gonna look mighty stupid." 

Simon glances back at Jayne, blinking. 

"Some of that made sense, Jayne. Not only that, I think there's a point in there. Somewhere." 

"Yeah." Jayne hunches down, his hands fiddling with the deck of cards on the table. "Sheppard said somethin' like it to me once about that whore that got shot." 

"Ah," Simon nods, daring a smile. "Game of cards?" 

"Gorammit, I was wonderin' when you'd get the hint. I'll get the Shepherd. I got a pile o' chores from here to Persephone." 

* * *

Wash climbs gingerly into bed beside Zoe, an arm instinctively curling around her belly. He quickly removes it, remembering. He sighs and she rolls over, staring at the ceiling of their bunk. 

"I wonder what she woulda been like?" 

Wash looks at his wife, at her face that had been etched with so much pain lately that he was unaccustomed to seeing it without. She's serene now, if only for a moment. 

"Oh, I think she would have been strong like her mother, like an Amazon. She would have started beating me up from six months old." 

"Or else funny like her dad." 

"Careful, Zo'. Don't wish me on anyone." He feels her laugh a little, just a little, and it's good enough for now. 

"She was beautiful, Wash." 

"Like her mother." He hesitates with what he really wants to say, knowing it's too soon, but picturing the rest of their children. Someday. Maybe on Serenity, maybe not. All light brown curls, all like Zoe, playing with his dinosaurs, shooing them away from her guns. 

Zoe turns over towards him, her head on his chest. He can tell by her expression alone that she's thinking about them too, about the children to come, and about the first, about Rose.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Bouquets**   
Author:   **Gotham**   [website]   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **PG-13**  |  **gen het**  |  **6k**  |  **08/18/04**   
Characters:  Malcolm, Zoe, Wash, Kaylee, Inara, Jayne, Simon, River, Book   
Pairings:  Zoe/Wash, implied Mal/Inara and Kaylee/Simon   
Summary:  Everyone deals with death a little differently.   
Notes:  Spoilers for Heart of Gold. Takes place a year or so after Objects in Space.   
  



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